Apple wants kids to buy its Apple Watch so they can message at school

We're in that weird retail bubble, when every shop starts filling its shelves with "back-to-school" offers and you find yourself swept up in the excitement of buying three-for-two ring binders and a new pen set before you really know what's happening.

Wander the gleaming halls of an Apple store with a child in-tow, and a blue-shirted helper may try and convince you to buy an Apple Watch to get your kid ahead in class.

Word comes from 9to5Mac that Apple's senior vice president of retail and online stores Angela Ahrendts is telling employees to sell the Apple Watch as the "greatest back to school item of this year" as it can be used in class without teachers spotting it - aiming the device not at parents, but at the students themselves.

"I don’t think the teachers have caught on to the Watch yet," said Ahrendts, advising sellers to butter up students with the line "jump on it before the teachers do".

Which begs the question of how well-heeled pupils are? The cheapest Apple Watch model, Watch Sport, costs a wallet-thumping £299 - quite a number to drop on a gadget that's going to aid the covert reading of messages and status updates.

That said, it's important that the next generation embrace new technologies, if only in the hope that interacting with the latest tech might spark an interest in pursuing a career in software development, coding or any number of computer sciences. Sure, you could use the Apple Watch to help cheat through an exam, but it's not like you're going to read off a whole essay on a 38mm screen?

A classroom hindrance or a logical step in improving learning? Let us know if you think Apple Watches at school would be a good idea.